Imagine the scene. Interview scenario; “Tell me about a time when you truly took one of your hiring community on a learning journey and explained what a new piece of recruiting technology actually delivers?”

How many of us would pass or fail this question? How many of us take the time to thoroughly inform and educate our hiring managers as to what talent pipeline software does or how programmatic advertising works? Or even a step further, do we sit down and sell the benefits of using that new assessment tool that will cut down on time and potentially improve quality of hire?

Take managers on our own journey, as it is their hires who will be affected … hopefully for the better. It’s for buy-in, advocacy, and responsibility. Plain and simple.

Buy-in. Hiring managers may reject new piece of HR tech due to not being consulted, not asked for an opinion, or actually advised on whether it will improve quality of hire. They might only have 10 percent involvement but a noisy 10 percent rejection will massively affect a positive outcome.

Advocacy. In the same way that a candidate or an employee might sing the praises of your organization, it works the exact same way if you have the support of your hiring community. Invite them to a demo of a new piece of HR technology. Involve them, ask their opinion, build their trust in what we do. If the solution promises what it can deliver and brings the benefits they require, they will promote and endorse … so all of a sudden when creating a business case or gaining executive agreement you have not only HR team support but a loyal and highly bought in hiring community. Win.

Responsibility. A very simple one. Hiring managers are responsible for hiring. We own and manage the machine that makes hiring possible. If managers put more effort into hiring, they get better people. They get better people their team performs better. Their team performs better and it makes them look good. Not a difficult sell. Hiring is not transactional. It is strategic and critical to any business. It needs 101 percent participation from both sides of the table with a very open and transparent operating model.

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So, the next time XXX is demoing, don’t make it a HR team event only. Invite everyone to the party.

Ben Gledhill is a talent acquisition leader specializing in employer branding and candidate experience. His career to date has taken him from recruitment consultant, RPO, to talent internal resourcing, and from outsourcing to banking and retail. He has a passion for simplifying the hiring life-cycle while maximizing hiring capability. He's on Twitter at @recruiterguynw